writing rambling

[isiscolo]

The story I have been working on is in beta. I am still kind of ridiculously in love with it, because the flaws haven't yet been pointed out to me and it is as perfect as a new boyfriend or a shiny toy. I am always boggled when people claim to hate their own just-posted stories. I always think the most recent thing I have written is the best

Comments

[china_shop]

Part of it is that I don't find "Fraser" isolating or distancing in F/K, because that's what Ray calls him in canon.

Yeah, no, I didn't mean that surnames were automatically distancing, but that perhaps the discrepancy between how the POV character thinks of themself and how they're addressed might create a disconnect. You know? So if I think of myself as "china" and my partner only called me "Ms. Shop", there's a question there about whether we each view me differently. Or maybe not. I mean, Fraser would never think of himself as "Benny", and I certainly don't see Vecchio calling him that as distancing (though I used to).

I think to myself, Vecchio. What the hell did you just do?

*nodnod* And that matches up with my Kowalski example. That we can (often?) have them addressing themselves by surname, even if the POV name doesn't match that.

I mean, the whole POV/name thing is artificial anyway, because I don't think of myself as "china" or "[my real name]" in my internal train of thought; I think of myself as "I". You know? So any third person narrative is going to be removed to some degree. I lean towards tighter third than you do, but it's still not in the character's head. At the very least, it's on his shoulder.

Oh, I don't know! I know nothing! *g* It seems to me that the heart of the problem is here: I generally default "Ray" in my head to Kowalski. Though that makes me wonder why Kowalski-POV third-person R/R stories don't work for you, since they should fit that model. Hmm...

[isiscolo]

They don't work slightly less for me, but they still irritate me. I think that the heart of the problem is TWO GUYS NAMED RAY. Stupid canon.

[china_shop]

Hee!

I guess there is the thing where if the POV character is calling himself Ray, shouldn't he be distinguishing between himself and the other Ray in the story. Hmm. I wonder if I can think of something else to try.

I've just started a Stella POV snippet, which also has "Ray" problems, and in some ways the naming is even more complicated than with Fraser POV, because I don't think Stella would think of them by surname at all. *tears at hair*

[isiscolo]

Well, hmm. Depending on the voice, you could have her actually think of them by full name, or give them shorthand "Ray One" and "Ray Two"...or maybe "Snookums" and "Honeybunch"! :-)

Yeah, I dunno.